madranchwife

Don’t know about where all y’all are, but the ambient air temperature at 6:53 a.m. this morning was a balmy -36 degrees Fahrenheit.  Please forgive me if I do not change that into Celsius…the brain is a bit slow this morning…iced up and all.

So once again, that’s 36 degrees below 0.  As in minus 36 degrees.  Or –36 degrees.  Doesn’t matter really.  Anyway you write it, it comes up as slightly unbelievable and just plain cold-sounding.  Don’t you think?

And that was ambient temperature.  No wind chill added.  Dude.  That’s just plain cold.

And the poor husband had to go out in it, not to mention the dogs.  At least he had boots, right?  Not sure how well they’ll hold up at 36 below!  I don’t think he wore the ones I bought him a couple of years ago that are rated to 50 below.  Maybe I should have suggested that.  Then again, better not to make sweet, wifely-type “suggestions” before  7 a.m.  Not smart.  See, I have learned something.  🙂

Oh yes, the dogs.  They lasted all of about 48 seconds before they were limping back to the door.  In fact, I had to step outside and beg Buck to walk back from the other side of the yard.  Poor thing.  I don’t think any business was taken care of which has me wondering when and how that might occur.  Ah, the things I ponder.

Did I mention the snow?  We actually got about 18 inches (on top of what was already here…maybe a foot?).  It’s absolutely gorgeous out there.  You should have seen the way the red lights on the fence lit up the stack of snow on top of it.  The snow was glowing red.  It was so cool.  Again, you’ll have to trust me, as that whole camera/nighttime/flash-y thing is not top of my list right now to figure out.

What’s front and center is trying to decide if I want to tackle the ginormous wreath I bought at auction in Saratoga years ago.  Well, to be honest, the veterinary clinic bought it, but since that and I are one and the same, my life and all the happenings sort of get mushed together.  Gosh, I digress.

Anyhoo.  The wreath is really, really cool with deer antlers, sage grouse feathers, sparkly things…and, well, it had blue lights.  And it was just beautiful.  But for the last two years, some of those pretty, blue lights have decided to take a rest.  And finally, last year, at the end of the season, thankfully, the last one took a breath, sighed and blinked out.  No more ethereal blueness emanating from the massive evergreen (albeit fake) circle hanging in the window.  So I unhooked the extension cord, tried to be all Buddhist and such (you know, as in no attachments, living in the moment, yada, yada, yada) and pretended not to see what was missing.  Then I simply packed it away and told myself I’d deal with it next year.

Fast forward (and boy do I mean fast) to now.  Now it’s “next year” and the wreath is laying in the bag on the absolutely gorgeous table the husband made for our “school.”  It’s just taking up space–the wreath in the bag, not the table.  We’d love to be using the table, but that’s a story for another day altogether.

Wow, I digress again.  Imagine that.

So, as I was writing.  This is now “next year” and I have GOT to address the wreath situation.  I planned ahead and when I was in town a couple of weeks ago, I bought a string of blue lights.  So I can once again get that bluish, heavenly, happy feeling when I see the wreath all lit up and glowing.  Only problem is, I have to string them.  Well, not only that, I have to unstring the strand that is already there.  Then I have to meticulously wind the new strand in so that the cord can not be seen, just the lights, and the lights are evenly spaced and not too many on one side, too little on the other side, perfectly balanced, and again, no cord showing.  And there you have it.  I’m Monica.  You should see me with the Christmas trees.  The one in the Great Room took me 4 hours.  It was 3 a.m. when I finished.  I wondered if I should just plug it in, sit and marvel at the beauty and wait for dawn.  I mean, at that hour, why go to sleep, right?  I succumbed though and woke up after 3 hours of sleep, slightly groggy and much grumpy.  Serves me right, I know.  But you should see the tree!!!

Ahem.  So, I’m Monica when it comes to the lights.  Which is why I’m putting off the humongous (did I mention it was large) wreath.  It’s going to be time-consuming and mind-altering and just generally a major pain in the kister.

Which reminds me of the patient I met last time I was at work.  Oh he was a dear.  He was this cute little old man (sorry–that is such a stereotype isn’t it–but he really was) who was funny, with a very dry sense of humor, and cantankerous at the same time.  So I couldn’t help but laugh every time he was being stubborn with me.  And his son and daughter-in-law were sitting there.  So I was trying not to be disrespectful to them, because sometimes it’s difficult not to get into the middle of family junk.  Actually, it’s always difficult.  And being in the hospital with a sick family member seems to bring out the worst  in people.  But, as usual, I digress.  So the son and I started talking and turns out he lives in Breckenridge, a town near and dear to my heart.  We reminisced about the good old days when there wasn’t even a stop sign downtown!  By that time, I’d gotten his father to agree to work with me and then he mentioned (the son) that he was sorry his father was such a PITA.  I started laughing and said “OMG, you know what that means!!  I’ve been saying that to people for such a long time, but no one ever knows what that means.  How cool is that?”  He just sort of looked at me.  And then I quickly assured him his father was not a pain in the ass and I thought he was just lovely and we’d have a grand time together.

Wow, that was rambling.  I was just giving a weather report and here we are discussing the curmudgeonly, cantankerous, cute patients I take care of.  It’s all good.

I’m hoping the husband is not blue with cold at the moment…..not to mention the calves.  That can be hard on the heart you know.  Thinking of those calves, standing out there in -36 degree weather, with a wind chill, trying to stay warm.  I mean, it’s not like they’re the Emperor Penguins down in Antarctica who all huddle together in a circle and when the ones on the inside are warm enough, they move to the outside and everyone moves in a bit.  Talk about teamwork, right?  Oh, and did you know those are the fathers????  Yep, the daddys are the ones who protect the egg, keep it warm and wait for it to hatch.  The moms are out trying to find food to bring back to the chicks once they hatch.  Oh, and trying not to get eaten.  Just a day in the life of an Emperor Penguin.

Anyway, the calves.  Please Great Spirit, Allah, God, the Great Mystery, Zeus, or whomever guards the universe, take care of the calves and the squirrels and our resident Stellar Jays and the chickadees (I saw 2 yesterday!!), and the deer and the elk and the moose and the rabbits and the coyotes (yes, I really said that, but we here think coyotes are just fine, so if you’ve got a problem with that, well, this isn’t your blog and you can go write your own).  Please make sure they’re all warm and toasty somewhere, well, if not toasty, at least warm.  And please make sure they can find some food.

And while you’re at it, please make sure our daddy is safe and warm today.

(Last line from the guest author of the day.)

(Pictures taken yesterday afternoon after the snow stopped falling and the sun tried desperately to peek out.)

Seriously.

Now if I could just stop being a blooming idiot and figure out how to take a picture, then you could see the gorgeous light display our humble abode is sporting!   I’m sure it’s something really simple, like turning off the flash perhaps?  Whatever.

How about you just trust me when I say that the outdoor lights here are fantastic!  Superb!  Out of this world!  Which makes me wonder…do you think they could be seen from space?

Just kidding.  We don’t have THAT many lights out there.  But what we do have is so awesome.  I would have just strung a few strands and called it good.  And if one itty, bitty bulb started causing problems, I’m sure I’d toss the whole darn thing.  But he fixed every single bulb!  And made it look pretty.  (Not tacky like I’m sure I would have done.)

So three cheers for our light guy!!  I’d loan him to all y’all but I’m fairly certain his “honey-do” list would preclude him from hiring on with anyone else.  🙂

I am telling you what.  Girl Power all the way dudes (and dudettes).

Holy buckets Batman but this movie is good!

“Frozen.”

Simply awesome.

You know how sometimes you laugh so hard you have tears streaming down your face and your cheeks hurt and your ribs are bruised?  I did that tonight.  At a funny little talking snowman named Olaf.

And you know how sometimes you just sob uncontrollably because something is so heartbreakingly sad?  Gracelyn did that tonight (I was mortified that the only sound in the quiet theater was my 6 1/2 year old, very cerebral, incredibly sensitive daughter trying desperately to cry without making a peep).

And you know how at the end of a just simply fantastic movie you spontaneously start clapping and can’t wait to see it again…and again…and again?  We did that tonight.

Wow.  Wow, wow, wow.  I’m not kidding.  It was spectacular.  Truly.  In so many ways.  And I don’t even know where to start really.

But I’ve got to get up before the day even starts, though it officially started five minutes ago, so I really, really need to close my eyes for a couple of hours.

Go see this movie.  You won’t regret it!!!

And no worries.  This is not Cinderella on steroids, or sappy Mrs. Potts singing about the Beauty and the Beast as they go waltzing off into the sunset.  It’s mostly a lot of Girl Power and girls saving the day and girls saving the guys behinds and girls just generally ruling the world.  Love it, love it, love it.  Maybe Disney is feeling they have to make up for all the Snow White/Sleeping Beauty baloney of years past.  The Disney princess heroines of late–I’m thinking Rapunzel and Merida specifically–are just the type of girls I want mine emulating.  Strong, resourceful (think Rapunzel and her frying pan), skilled (Merida’s archery prowess is to die for), sassy and most of all, INDEPENDENT.  These chicks do NOT need a man for anything.  Got to love that lesson!  No more staring wistfully into the wishing well and crooning in a sickeningly saccharine voice…”someday my prince will come…”  For the love of Pete but that makes my stomach cramp.    (And we met the real Snow White.  And let me tell you…she TOTALLY sounds like that.  Hurt my ears to listen to her.)

Again.  Go see this movie.  I don’t think you’ll regret it.  I for one can not wait to see it again so I can laugh til my sides hurt and tears are streaming down my face.

As Robert said earlier tonight…PRICELESS.

One year ago today, about 11:45 a.m. to be exact, Max went missing.  Not a day has gone by since that he has not been thought of.  He is in our Prayer Journal every night, asking that the Universe, the Great Mystery, the Great Spirit, Allah, God, whomever is in charge, watch over him, wherever he may be, and keep him warm and safe and yes, happy.

We miss him.  We miss his mischievousness, his wiggly little bum, his rambunctious ways.  Buck misses his playmate.  He’s not been the same since he showed up here alone that morning, one year ago today. Gracelyn doesn’t understand why life should be so unfair–that a little girl’s puppy did not come home, one year ago today.

I try to explain to her that life is not fair.  It was never meant to be fair.  Bad things happen.  They just do.  And sometimes they happen just once or twice in your life.  Sometimes they happen a lot of times in your life.  Some people have many, many, many bad things to deal with.  Others don’t.  But one of the worst things we can do is look at others and think that they are so much ‘luckier’ than us.  This sounds so trite, but we all have something to bear.  We all carry a burden.  Sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes it’s buried under layers.  I think we are all just doing the best we can with what we’ve been given.

Our family was given the pain and anguish of a little, loved puppy not coming home.  Our family was given the sorrow and grief of not knowing what has become of our little buddy Max.  Maximus.  It is our grief.  It is our pain.  It is not for others to judge, just as it is not for us to judge how others deal with loss in their lives.

I tell her, as we lay in bed saying our prayers for the night, that sometimes there are simply no answers as to why.  We will most likely never know what transpired on the morning of Tuesday, November 27th 2013, one year ago today.  And that has to be OK.  We don’t have to like it.  I tell her that I don’t like it any more than she does.  But, I tell her, we must accept it.  We must accept the reality of life.  We don’t have to like it, but we absolutely, without a doubt, must accept it.  Or we will be stuck forever in a whirlpool of sadness, grief, anger and hate.  We will simply swirl around and around in a sea of badness, never appreciating what is unfolding in front of us.  She gets this.

She gets this.  And she’s six.  Almost seven.  But she gets this.  It is humbling to watch her take in the words, turn them over and over in her precious little brain and then give them back to me in her interpretation of what I’ve tried to impart to her.  She gets it.

And for that, I will be eternally grateful.  We are blessed, this little family of mine.  Not because our beloved Maximus didn’t come home, one year ago today.  But because from that sorrow we are learning to accept life on life’s terms.  And that, my friends, is truly one of life’s greatest lessons.

Blessings to you, on this day.  And, if you would be so kind, take a moment to send a prayer to the Universe for our Max.

We got the Christmas trees today.

Yes, I know Thanksgiving has yet to happen.

Yes, I know it is only November 24.

Yes, I know how excruciatingly painful it is to wander into a store, take a Starbucks for example, and see shiny red ribbons and festive silver and gold decorations and Christmas coffee cups for god’s sake in the middle of November.  I know this is enough to cause one to lose their cool.  In fact, I held out for as long as I could.  I absolutely refused to drink a Peppermint Mocha until AFTER Thanksgiving.

And then I caved.

I lemminged (bear with me on that one) my way to Peppermint Mocha heaven.  I am not proud of that fact.  I do not like that I would waddle off a cliff just because all of the others are doing it as well.  I do have some sense of self mind you.   But I just couldn’t help myself.  Truly.  I simply could not resist any longer.

Wow.  I’d be terrible if I was ever interrogated about anything.  I’d last all of 8.2 seconds most likely.  And then I’d be crying “I’ll tell you everything you want to know…just don’t take away my coffee.”  Such a pathetic wimp.

But, as usual, I digress.

So given that I lemminged my way to a Peppermint Mocha, I figured it was only a matter of time before the umpteen Christmas bins came out of storage and the movies started playing (heck, who am I kidding…we watch White Christmas year round in this house!!  We love us our Bing and Danny and the girls!).  As I was saying, it was only a matter of time.

The biggest challenge though was going to be convincing the lumberjack we needed to procure the greenery a wee bit early this year.  Now, knowing the uphill battle I was sure to encounter, I ever so carefully laid out the strategy, the pros and cons, the logic behind my ideas.  I must be a VERY good talker, because today was the day!!  November 24th mind you, with Thanksgiving feasts yet to be devoured, and we set out in the snow.

Mission accomplished as you can see!!!!!!!

Setting off into the wild, white yonder.

The lumberjack and his dogs.

Little girl, big tree.  (No, the lumberjack did not cut this one down.  And no, I did not ask him to.)

Little saw, sort of big tree.

Little saw, little tree.

All done.  And such a pretty crew, eh?

(Now my work begins.  I’ll let you see the finished product, just as soon as I wave my magic wand and say bibbidi-bobbidi-boo.  Every mommy should have a magic wand.  Mine happens to work best between the hours of 12 a.m. and 3 a.m. fueled by, yes you guessed it, a triple shot, 1/2 caffe, dark chocolate mocha with whip.)

Blessings to you all!

A Kennedy gem.

And a superb definition of a “Liberal.”  Makes me proud to be one.  Makes me want to stand at the top of a mountain and shout it for all to hear.

“If by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a  “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a ‘Liberal’.”  from Profiles in Courage

“Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet.  We all breathe the same air.  We all cherish our children’s future.  And we are all mortal.”

…from a speech delivered by President John F. Kennedy titled “A Strategy of Peace” delivered on June 10, 1963 at the American University in Washington, D. C.

The basic premise of the speech was an outreach to the Soviet Union during the Cold War.  However, I think this excerpt could be applied in a multitude of ways today.

For we are all, every single one of the inhabitants of this earth, the same.  We are mortal human beings.  We have the same needs.  We have the same wants.  Albeit, some of those wants and needs look different on the surface.  But at the most base level, they are similar.

And at that most base level, should our desires not be for our children’s futures?  For the ability to live in a world without the threat of hate and prejudice simply because one believes in a different God, or speaks a different language, or has a different color skin.  For the security in knowing that the earth they will walk on will look like the earth they walk on today.  For the peace in knowing that should there come a time in their life where they are downtrodden, hungry, cold and lonely, there might be someone who will offer a hand up.

We need to think about our children.  We need to leave this place better than we found it.

I haven’t known what I could possibly add to the memories, the tributes, the talk surrounding this somber day in American history.  I was not alive on this day 50 years ago.  I have, I believe, felt the ripples of the effects of this tragic event.  I think we all feel the ripples from that day.  I think we shall feel them for years to come.

I think instead I can do my part by passing on to my daughter the wisdom and knowledge of President John F. Kennedy.  I can teach her about the events that transpired in the months and weeks leading up to this day 50 years ago.  Meaning the tone of the country, the hatred directed toward the President, the tensions that led to that hatred.  (I have made a contract with myself as the teacher to attempt, to the best of my ability, to teach my daughter with no bias.  I admit, sometimes it seeps through, but really, with her new hero being President Calvin Coolidge because of his policies, does it look like I’m throwing the game?)

I believe President John F. Kennedy deserves to be honored.  I believe he left a legacy of service to this country that begs to be embraced today.

Not to be trite or hackneyed, but it would do well to remember this:

“Ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country.”

John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961

“Parchment will fail, the sword will fail, it is only the spiritual nature of man that can be triumphant.”          Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)

We are studying the presidents and have reached #30, President Calvin Coolidge.  I love him because my very first dog, the indomitable Calvin, shared the first name.  My Grandma Burnett was sure that’s why I named Calvin Calvin.  I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was actually because of the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes.  That seemed so puerile after what she had suggested.  So I let it lie.

Gracelyn thinks Calvin Coolidge was….cool.  Really.  That was the word she came up with.  But then we read further.  She found out he was, gasp, a Republican.  And it seems a Republican that would make those of today very happy–he cut taxes a couple of times and was all for limited government.

Gracelyn thinks he’s cool because he was seriously serious about the United States of America staying out of foreign affairs.  Her new thing is that she thinks America should, basically, and this is not a direct quote, mind its own business.

So.  Now I’ve got a little Libertarian to go with the big one in my house.   Ah.  “The only security in life is relishing life’s insecurities.”     So true Mr. Churchill, so true.

Yes.  They’ve got our back.  Shouldn’t we have theirs?

In case you’re so inclined:

www.greenbeanscoffee.com/coj

Have a lovely day!

Such a pretty, pretty song.  Thought I’d pass it along.

“Wish For You”   by Faith Hill